family day

We had a wonderful family day on Friday because I had to work this last weekend. Started the morning with cinnamon rolls. I had prepped them the day before:

my little 'helper' kept me company by playing nicely in the kitchen

This was them after they rose. I put them in the fridge because they were for the next day.

After baking and icing.

Soooo... I'm not sure what happened, but they looked a lot different than the recipe girl's rolls:

It might be because my flour was actually white (wheat) flour when it probably was supposed to be all-purpose. And I'm wondering if them sitting in the fridge overnight messed anything up? But really, who wants to wake up an hour earlier to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast?! And even my icing doesn't look white or good either, and that was made exactly the same. So who knows. They tasted ok, but "ok" is kind of a bummer when you were hoping for cinnabun deliciousness and you spent an hour making mediocre rolls.

Oh well, they certainly did not stop us from having a good day.

And August loved his first cinnamon roll.

We played with August, worked on our deck project, cut dead branches off a tree in our yard, went to the park and played with him on the jungle gym.

- See those adorable x-wing star wars pants! May the Fourth! :) -

Went to Menards for deck supplies. And when we came home watched The Greatest Showman. We had to go to 4 redboxes to get it, pretty popular, but neither of us really liked it. Felt it was kinda blah, and I would've preferred a more documentary-ish truth of the real story of the Barnum & Bailey circus.

So anyway, a nice family day, and then 2 days of work for me. Oh how I wish someday to not have to work weekends. Yes, it's only every 3rd- I just always seem to miss something important. This weekend was Liz's son Ben's 3rd birthday, and the funeral service for Doug's aunt. Also this really fun door-to-door music festival in Ann Arbor was this weekend too, we've been there 2 years in a row. Plus I just like to be home on Sundays for church and family time. Maybe someday.

Home with August today, enjoying time with him after seeing him only 30 mins after my work day/before his bedtime. We are done breastfeeding (good job boobs!!) so I don't wake him up anymore before I go to work, and I miss him.

Spring has come and it is so beautiful.

I love our yard in the spring.

September kitty will not stay indoors!

grow garden grow

My mom came over and helped me plant the garden when we returned from Hawaii in May.

We planted zucchini, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, pole beans, san marzano tomatoes, cucumber, beets, broccoli, dill, and brussel sprouts. Mom set up the fence and we were good to go... or so we thought.

The neighborhood groundhog got in anyway (we think under the fence?) ate a bunch of the beet greens, almost all the leaves off the beans, a zucchini plant, all the broccoli, the dill, and 3 out of 4 of the Brussel sprouts. I went back to Lowes and got some replacement plants, but they weren't selling pole beans anymore, and I didn't bother with broccoli again. We thought we reinforced the fence, but the very next day he ate it almost all again. RRRRRRRR.

So we borrowed mom and dad's live trap.

Gotcha!

I will spare you the other 4 groundhog photos, because they pretty much all look alike. Yup, we caught 5 groundhogs. One day we even got 2 in one day. So after debating what to do with them, we decided to let them go in this fieldy area about 5 miles away. And we took them all one by one to the same spot so hopefully they can reunite.

It's been a couple days with no more in the trap, and no more garden decimation. So that's good.

So far I have some green tomatoes, a little cuke growing, but everything else is still pretty small. Here's hoping for a better turnout than last year!

Speaking of fresh veggies, I hosted book club last night and made this awesome salad. The dressing was the star of the show, everyone loved it and it was all gone. Can't wait to make it again.

Spicy Vegan Potato Curry recipe

This recipe is too good not to share!

They said my hemoglobin was low at one of my doctor's appointments so I was searching for iron rich foods and recipes and came upon this gem.

Yes, it will make your house smell like curry for 3 days at least, but it is super tasty.

70% the daily iron requirement!

I make it with frozen (not canned) peas. This time I added a zucchini from a friend's garden, but think I preferred it without actually. We had it with a side of beans from mom's garden and it was wonderful.

life lately

Not up to anything crazy lately. I'm working 6 out of the 8 next days, sooo looking forward to that. But after that, my family will be in town! So I am really looking forward to that. What I need to be doing is getting my act together about my online class. It's a research class and I just don't care right now. But I really need to be reading and summarizing articles so I can write my paper. Just cannot get motivated.

One kinda funny thing is I got a text of a recipe from my cousin's wife. My cousin has the same exact name as me and maiden name, and so occasionally she tries to send herself a text to remind her of something and she sends it to me. It was a recipe for a vegan shepard's pie, so I thought I'd try it!

Pretty good! I told her to please feel free to accidentally text me more delicious recipes :)

One little thing that makes me smile, this fat little chubbster eating at my bird feeder. This little guy has no tail, hence his name 'no tail' and I've been watching him a couple years now.

What a cutie. Eat up!

It's really cool watching birds and squirrels outside our window, we've had several large turkeys in the yard again, kinda cool, feel like I live in the country again.

Last night Doug and I rented Bridge of Spies from redbox, it was pretty good. Made me miss my paralegal job. Today we relax and do some errands and back to work tomorrow!

Annie Homemaker

Today I went up to mom's to learn how to can. Mom had already started without me, but I helped can the rest of a half bushel of tomatoes.

It wasn't "hard", but time consuming, and uses a lot of water!

Oh my gosh mom's garden puts mine to so much shame. This is my first garden and all, but mom has huge tomatoes and the stems are so thick and hearty and mine are just not. Next year maybe I'll try the raised beds, but I just don't have the space mom has (and hard work drive?). Oh well.

She had one basil plant that grew like 4 feet tall and was overflowing with leaves, so we made pesto.

I followed some easy recipe I just googled, it was 1/4 c. toasted almonds (but I did toast mine a little too long :(, 1/2 cup olive oil, 2 cups basil leaves (I think my huge pile was more than that), salt and pepper to taste and a dash nutmeg all whizzed around in the food processor. Easy. I took home half the recipe and plan to have it over hot penne pasta tomorrow with some grilled chicken on top. Yum!

housewifeing

This weekend flew by pretty quickly. Doug had to go into the office for some OT this weekend so I went with him. I sat in a desk nearby watching movies while he worked. The engineer he works under stopped by to check his work and he brought us lunch. It was a nice gesture, but pretty much the worst wendy's burger I have ever had (and I like wendy's burgers!) I think the problem was when Doug asked what I wanted and I said a jr. cheeseburger, no mayonnaise. And I got a cheeseburger with only mayonnaise on it. Haha. Oh well.

Later I made this cranberry sauce I love with the last of the season's cranberries. I wish they were in stock year round!

Saturday night we went to my old work's Christmas party. It was so nice of them to include me and fun to see everyone. Except getting ready for the party was not fun. I felt like I had nothing good to wear, I have lots of dress clothes, but not much cold-weather-nice clothes. And ended up in a dress that somehow got shorter as the night went on feeling like a shorter-fatter-Pretty-Woman wanna be in my dress. Part of that is my black boots are not real leather, under pants they are great, but other times I feel like they just look cheap. I have instated a 'no more fake leather boots' ban on myself ever since a pair of old boots just started peeling away, and have been replacing my cheap crap with more quality pieces as I see it on sale, just haven't found good black dress ones to replace these cheap fakes yet. And then trying to find jewelry also was not fun as I pull out tangled masses of necklaces half of which I don't even like!

So this morning I went through my closet and got rid of a bunch of stuff. And then the same thing with my jewelry box. I read some article a couple years ago that when you're shopping you should ask yourself if it makes you feel like a '10' and if not- don't buy it. Now, sometimes I feel like you need a couple '8s' because I don't need to look like a 10 while I'm just sitting at home or cleaning or whatever, but as I look at my discard pile, none of them were 10s. (Or a couple shirts I did love, just got shorter over the years :( ) and a lot of it was stuff I haven't worn in a long time, because I just don't like how it looks on! So I think that is some pretty good clothes shopping wisdom. I did tell Doug though that I would like to set aside some $ to go and buy a couple classic pieces so that I will have something to go to for that cold-weather-but dressy occasion.

This weekend I also spent some time scrubbing spots off my cabinets, and learned I can't even scrub too hard because the paint was scrubbing off! And Doug and I worked on interview prep questions.

We shopped at Lowes for a little kitchen microwave update project, and some water shut-off project he is going to do. They have the best workers there. The guy in the plumbing section was a retired plumber! And so Doug got to brainstorm and talk with this guy for free. Nice.

I think that was the end of my productivity for the day because I started in on season 5 of Alias while Doug put a new belt on my car. Yay! No more embarrassing squeaks!

Sunday, church (which was awesome), and free tacos. More Alias for me while Doug worked on stuff. My parents came over for a visit. Sometimes I don't like being the oldest child. Earlier in the week my mom sent me an email.. "if we die this weekend, mail the check on the counter..." Geez. They are doing some future nursing home insurance plan which is super expensive and they could (and hopefully will!) just live on healthy for the next 15+ years in the meantime wasting their money. I guess that's what insurance is all about though, a calculated risk. Anyway, I was asking mom why they want to do that and she said she doesn't think any of us would let them live with us!?! Which is crazy, and I reminded her today that Doug and I both said we would be willing to take care of our parents as long as we are able. So anyway. Heavy stuff.

Then for some reason Doug and I watched another scary/thriller movie right before bed. Prisoners with Jackman and Gyllenhall, really good, but better to watch during the daytime! We did not like how Christians were portrayed in the movie, but hopefully people can tell the difference between a real Christian and some crazy fanatic-gone-wrong "Christian".

This little kitty was laying with her head propped right on my foot

cookie break

With my exam just days away, I am in desperate need of a cookie break.

I remembered this reaaaaally good chocolate chip cookie recipe I made last fall, so I went to my trusty favorite recipes binder and thumbed through my recipes, once, twice, more and more frantic, where was it!?! And then I remembered, I think I used the link from my phone and had not printed off the recipe because I had no printer ink at the time. Noooooooooooooooo!

Luckily my googling skills and impeccable blog reading memory (this good memory only applies to blogs unfortunately), I recognized the recipe after just opening 4-5 tabs.

So now I just need to convince Doug to stop at the grocery store on his way home for bread flour and cake flour, and then I'm in business! Although still only halfway in business as these cookies need a rediculously long refrigeration period. (2-3 days?!?) but they were very good. And how could one not wait after reading the author describe it as: Chilling. This is key — KEY! — to cookie texture success. The reason is that letting the dough rest allows all the eggs and the butter and the liquids to ooze and soak and hydrate into all the dry goodness. 24 hours is minimum, 36 is preferable (and noticeably better). Also, the flavor gets crazy! Deep, caramel-y, toffee-y, and they bake up so much more deliciously brown. Plus, it lets the outside get crisp and crackly and keeps the middle almost underdone when you pull them out — they set up and turn into soft, chewy heaven. You just have to. Soft, chewy heaven?? Who says no to that.

This time I'm printing it off, and linking it here in case anyone else finds themselves in a situation where they need a delicious cookie.

sweetest day

My sweetie brought me some treats for sweetest day.

Fun flowers and chocolate covered strawberries, mmmm

I had made this cauliflower alfredo from my favorite food blog girl.

I had that cauliflower in the fridge a couple weeks, I just never felt like making the recipe. But no grocery shopping in a couple weeks has made me desperate, and so I cooked it up. It was quick and easy. And honestly it was delicious the first time. But Doug didn't love it, and it wasn't quite as good the next day, so I'm not sure if I'll make it again.

Speaking of my favorite blog people, food blog girl had a baby and has been much less active, another favorite blogger has almost completely dropped off the face of the internet, and my very favorite home blog has decided to stop blogging after 7 years. I applaud their decision for their family, there were some definite sacrifices being made there, but I'll miss it. And just when I'm getting a home!! Alas. I do still have a few more blogs I really like, I hope they stay! :)

Sunday I spent most of the day studying

Jill cooked up a feast

it was glorious

she made chicken stir fry from scratch and chicken biriyani from a starter packet (I will definitely be buying that, it was so good!)

And today was my LAST exam!! (of my ADN program, I still have to do the BSN completion program) I ended up passing this last semester with an A and a B+. Woot.

Seems like this 2 years flew by. I remember my first day, and my first exam where I sobbed in the hall after it, and many many times saying 'no' to stuff so I could study. I can't believe there was a time where I thought I would go to nursing school and not tell anyone till my surprise graduation. Haha, I think that stemmed more from a fear of public failure, but I'm glad I let people in, I have needed this support and encouragement!

October 2014 future RNs:

Yay! We did it!